EarthConnections National Alliance Project Kicks off at UNAVCO

• UNAVCO Staff: Donna Charlevoix, Aisha Morris
• Dates: 14-15 November 2016
• Location: Boulder, Colorado
• Funding Source: NSF INCLUDES

Written by Donna Charlevoix
5 January 2017

Overview

Sixteen leaders in STEM and geoscience education gathered in Boulder, Colorado at UNAVCO headquarters to kick off the EarthConnections: Community Pathways to Geoscience Careers project. EarthConnections is a new initiative funded under the NSF INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) program. INCLUDES aims to improve access to STEM education and career pathways at the national scale, making them more widely inclusive to underserved populations. EarthConnections is one of 37 awards in the inaugural INCLUDES program.

EarthConnections is a two-year project to develop bold, new models to broaden participation in STEM. It brings together partners who have led successful national efforts addressing components of these challenges with partners in three regions to create pathways in three regional alliances, focusing on key academic transitions in three diverse US communities—Atlanta, GA; San Bernardino, CA; and Oklahoma—and will use these pathways as laboratories and catalysts for a systemic change in geoscience and geoscience education. These pathways will include multiple opportunities for students to:

1. learn geoscience in the context of compelling local issues,
2. use geoscience to address local challenges, and
3. explore geoscience career pathways.